


To Hell With Gotham City

by TheFightingBull



Series: Vets and Mercenaries AU [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe - Veterinarians, Gen, Good Parent Slade Wilson, Good Slade Wilson, How Jason Todd becomes Jason Wilson, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Sexual, Protective Slade Wilson, Slade Wilson is not having it, mercenary au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23425738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFightingBull/pseuds/TheFightingBull
Summary: How Jason Todd becomes the adopted son of Slade Wilson for the Vets and Mercenaries AU series.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Slade Wilson
Series: Vets and Mercenaries AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662832
Comments: 3
Kudos: 195





	To Hell With Gotham City

Slade hated Gotham City. Even cheap rental cars weren’t safe from the scourge of their bottom dwellers. All he wanted to do was pick up some snack for the road tomorrow. Everything had actually been going pretty well. Joey was on a concert tour with his school’s orchestra and Slade, Grant, and Billy were following along.

He approached silently, seeing that three of his tires were already missing. He stepped around to the back-passenger side where the fourth should be and wasn’t at all surprised by what he saw. Not in Gotham anyhow.

“Hey, Brat, where’s the other three tires?” he demanded.

The pale little boy with black hair and bright blue eyes looked up and Slade felt something violent and angry rear it’s head at the sight. The child’s face was bruised up. He had a black eye and a large gash in the eyebrow above it. The kid looked far too young to be getting into fights that could turn out so badly.

The terrified child backed up and raised the tire iron as if to defend himself. Slade couldn’t imagine how terrifying he must have been. He was over two feet taller than the little boy and missing an eye, Slade knew damned well that children were frightened of him. As Joey had often pointed out, he looked like a pirate. Grant often added something vulgar about the pornographic industry.

“I-I hid them over there,” the kid pointed to a spot that obviously didn’t have his missing tires. Considering the amount of smoke wafting out the alley “over there”, Slade figured there were some nasty bums that would jump any unsuspecting victim of the little brat. “I p-promise.”

Taking a step back from angry tourist Slade, he tried to settle down for the sake of the youngster. “Who hit you? Another kid? One of the beggars?” Slade asked.

“No.”

“Then who hit you?” When it didn’t appear the child would speak, Slade scowled and stepped closer to which the boy took his own step back. “Come on, don’t make me ask you again. You aren’t in any trouble with me.”

“My dad, alright? What do you care anyway?”

Slade would have reacted visibly, but he wasn’t going to scare a boy who’d been brutalized by his own father. That would only make the kid collapse in on himself or worse, run from Slade.

“Come here, Kid, let me take a look at your eye,” he ordered. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay?”

“Bullshit, you’re pissed about them tires I stole!” The kid started to step back once more.

“It’s a rental, Brat, I’ve got insurance. Especially in this shithole you call a city.” His tone helped to calm the child. Or at least, they didn’t frighten him any further as the little guy didn’t continue his retreat. He knew his words weren’t helping, but Slade didn’t really have finesse with kids.

After several long seconds the child stepped closer, still gripping the tire iron until his little knuckles were white. Once he was close enough, Slade crouched down and very gently and slowly brought his hands to the kid’s face and ignored the flinch he knew would come. He inspected the gash. It was an angry red and there was good chance it was infected considering how dirty the kid was. He then tilted the boy’s chin up to see a few very suspicious bruises that wrapped around his neck.

“What’s your name?” Slade asked softly, quietly to keep everything as calm and as peaceful as he could manage.

“Jason,” the boy whispered back, immediately trying to mimic Slade.

He nodded and then dropped his hands. “Okay Jason, I need you to be honest with me,” he began again, “Did you try to hurt yourself?” He pointed to the kid’s neck when Jason looked confused. “To maybe escape?”

“No,” Jason shook his head. “That was my dad, too.”

“Okay, have you been struck anywhere that I can’t see? Anywhere under your clothes?”

“Yes,” Jason nodded.

“Will you set the tire iron down and let me see?”

Jason shook his head. “No way! You’re just a pervert!”

The kid started to panic and was backing away again, something Slade hadn’t meant to trigger. He needed to figure out a way to salvage the situation. Get the boy to trust him. It wasn’t like anyone else would help the kid. And that was probably the biggest issue working against Slade. They were in Gotham where even the cops couldn’t be trusted. Why should a giant stranger with a missing eye be any more trustworthy?

“Hey, hey, easy now,” Slade lifted his hands again. “I’ll put my hands behind my back, okay? I’m worried about some injuries inside your body. Ones you can’t see. If you’re hurt real bad we need to get you some real help. Help that won’t put you in a home or a jail cell or back with your old man.”

Jason regarded him cautiously but once more the kid was coming closer. Instinctively he must have known that if Slade meant him harm, there wasn’t much Jason could have done to escape. Or so he hoped.

“Come on, Jason. You can show me your back and stomach, right? Just pull up your shirt, you don’t have to take it off. I’m not even gonna touch you, understand? I’ll even keep my hands behind my back.”

Finally, Jason nodded and then lifted his shirt. Slade saw the bruising and was disgusted. Jason had been kicked a few times in the back. He knew that patterning. Had seen it a few times and Hell, even as a teen himself he’d experienced it once or twice when he picked a few fights before the growth spurt. But none of that happened at such a young age. He was furious and someone in Gotham wasn’t going to see sunup.

“Okay, Jason,” Slade stood up to his full height. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to take you to see my sons and their Uncle Billy. He’s a lot better at medicine than I am and he’s going to take a look at that eye and some of the bruises to make sure you’re okay.”

“But my dad…”

He shook his head and placed his hand softly on the kid’s shoulder. “No, no. Don’t you worry about your old man. He won’t be a problem anymore, okay?”

“How?” Jason asked but he seemed to be growing more comfortable in his presence by the minute.

“Well, when I take you to my hotel to meet my sons, I’m gonna go have a chat with your dad.” Slade answered honestly. “You see, I don’t think he’s taking very good care of you and I think you’d be better off with me.”

He waited for the kid to argue, but instead the boy looked contemplative as he stared up at him. “Okay,” Jason finally decided. “He won’t be able to hurt you.”

Slade grinned. “No, he won’t.”

* * *

The first thing Slade saw when he opened the hotel suite’s door was his oldest, Grant. The boy was sitting at the provided desk and working on his homework, a cigarette butt pressed between his lips and a mixed drink sitting beside his laptop.

“Grant, put that shit out,” Slade snarled in a whisper. He didn’t want to wake Jason up. “Show some courtesy to your brother for fuck’s sake.”

His oldest didn’t even look up as he rolled his eyes and dropped the cigarette into the drink. “Sorry, Dad, but this exam has me stressed out! Joey’s already in bed and I just figured–

“What the Hell? Why do you have a kid?” Grant practically shouted.

“Keep it down, would you? Where’s Billy?” Slade asked, ignoring his son’s questions.

“On the patio… _Smoking_ a cigar.”

“Yeah well, he’s doing it outside where it won’t bother Joey. You wanna smoke, do it out there.” Slade lectured as laid the sleeping child on the couch.

He couldn’t deny that he’d feel better once Billy had a look at the bruises. Was it normal for the child to be so sleepy? What if there was internal bleeding? Slade just didn’t know as much about injuries thanks to the enhancements. Billy always handled all that. Especially since Slade had a tendency to overreact when the boys got hurt.

Grant stood from the desk and frowned. “Dad, seriously. Why do you have a kid?”

Slade ignored him and opened the sliding glass door. “Hey, Wintergreen, get your ass in here, I need your help.”

He didn’t wait for Billy to hop to as he left the door open and folded his arms. Maybe he should take Jason to the hospital? Maybe he had a concussion? Should he be sleeping? Fuck. Why didn’t his mind work properly when the boys were injured and how had Jason already been included?

“Joey get hurt?” Billy frowned as he walked in. The man’s eyes widened as he stared down at the new addition. “We aren’t here on a mission, Slade! How’d you even cross paths?”

“Jason was trying to steal the tires off my rental. Kid’s beat up pretty good. He’s got some nasty bruises and I can’t tell—

“Yeah, yeah.” Billy interrupted and then began to mumble in a very intelligible voice. “I’ll take a look. You never could handle seeing the kids hurt. All your damned common sense and training goes right out the window when it comes to your boys.”

Slade stepped back and went to the small kitchen area and pulled out a bottle of water. He took a long pull from it. He looked to Grant who was watching Billy and the little boy curiously. His oldest wasn’t quite as tall as Slade and probably never would be. Even if he had that final growth spurt some boys got around nineteen, he doubted it would be two to three inches more.

He tried to be patient, but even if Jason looked nothing like Slade’s blond haired boys, he couldn’t help but relate their major incidents. Grant had been in a car wreck only two years ago. Sure he’d been a teen, but it was horrifying. Slade hadn’t even gotten the call until after the doctors had come out of surgery because Grant was in the states with Billy while he was out of country.

Then of course there was Joey. His poor baby boy whose throat had been cut so deep it managed to damage vocal cords. Once the threat was taken care of, Slade had nearly fallen apart on himself. It wasn’t something he’d ever handled well. He figured Billy was right, Slade was always too close emotionally.

For a man with perfect control over his reactions and instincts, something about seeing his boys injured destroyed all that. And the same thing was happening with Jason. He appeared calm on the outside. In charge, surly, maybe impatient, but inside he was a wreck. 

“He’s gonna be fine,” Billy announced much to his relief. “The head wound is infected but there’s no internal bleeding. Or at least, not beyond the bruising of course. Kid’s gonna need to take it easy a few weeks, just to be sure, but he’s in no immediate danger. Maybe when we get out of Gotham we can see one of our doctors and get him checked out.”

Good. Now he just needed to take care of one last thing before they left in the morning.

“I need to go out.”

“For what?” Grant demanded with a scowl. “We still have to get packed and someone needs to tell Joey the field trip’s been cut short.”

“I need to finalize the adoption.” Slade snarled.

His son froze. “Oh. Do… Do you want me to come with?”

Slade closed his eye and stepped up to his son. He took a deep breath and brushed back some of the young man’s blond hair from his eyes. “No, Kid. You keep your nose clean. You want in the FBI someday and I won’t ask you to jeopardize that. Besides, you don’t want this kind of shit on your conscience.”

He started to walk toward the door when Grant grabbed his arm. “Dad? Are you sure about this? I mean, Joey’s already fifteen. Do you really want to start raising another kid?”

Slade shrugged. “I got all the time in the world, Grant. Besides, he needs us.”


End file.
